Ariella Siu-Yin Mak-Neiman began her formal musical training in Madison, Wisconsin, under the tutelage of renowned teacher/composer Olive P. Endres. A former student of Victoria Bogdashevskaya, Mary Toy, Regina Yeh, Craig Sheppard, Norman Krieger, and Jordan Rashkov, Mak-Neiman has been the recipient of competitive awards sponsored by the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA), Performing Arts Festival of the Eastside (PAFE), Washington State Music Teachers Association (WSMTA), Greater Spokane Music & Allied Arts Festival, and Seattle Young Artists Music Festival Association. She has performed solo and chamber music recitals, both live and on the radio, and been featured in the master classes of Byron Janis, Nelita True, Daniel Pollack, Frank Henaghan, Christopher Taylor, and Paul Roberts. Since her orchestral debut with the Spokane Symphony in 2001, she has been offered scholarships toward musical study by the Victoria Conservatory of Music, Indiana University, Aspen Music Festival, and Summit Music Festival. In November 2005, she was the Washington State Alternate Winner for the MTNA Steinway & Sons Young Artist Piano Competition.
Mak-Neiman graduated from the University of Washington (UW) with a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, cum laude. She completed her graduate work at the University of Southern California (USC), where she earned a Master of Music in piano performance at the Thornton School of Music and a Master of Arts in strategic public relations at the Annenberg School for Communication. Following her graduation from USC, she studied musicology at the graduate level as a fellowship student at Yale University. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Theta Kappa, and Psi Chi national honor societies.
In 2006, Mak-Neiman was a recipient of the American Musicological Society (AMS) Cultural Diversity Travel Fund Award, which sponsored her attendance at the 2006 AMS/SMT Annual Conference. From 2005-2008, Mak-Neiman served as events coordinator on the board of the Southern California Early Music Society, a community organization dedicated to the promotion of early music throughout the Greater Los Angeles area. As a volunteer, she coordinated events for the Society and assisted in the production of its publication, the Early Music News.
Mak-Neiman was a founding member of Pianists in Collaboration, Inc., a Seattle-based performing group that regularly featured both familiar staples and novel transcriptions from the piano ensemble literature. For two years, she also served as a performing member and director of public relations on the executive board of Collaborative Artists EastWest, Inc., a Washington State nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance of music by Asian composers.
Also active as a sacred musician, Mak-Neiman is currently employed as the sole pianist for Crown Hill United Methodist Church and Shoreline United Methodist Church. In addition, she shares a joint appointment as pianist at Magnolia United Methodist Church.
For over ten years, Mak-Neiman has taught piano students of all ages and levels, both in her private studio and as a faculty member of the Seeds of Learning School (Washington) and the Pialish School of Music (California). An active member of the Music Teachers National Association, she currently teaches in South Bellevue and North Seattle, Washington.
